The Hanover Collaboration

I just retired my venerable Motorola E815. It was pretty beat up. Utilizing 1) the “new after two”, 2) online discounts and 3) selling my soul for another two years, I got the LG enV VX9900 for free. I’m hoping it lasts until someone (e.g. Google) has a phone standard (i.e. OS/API) and Verizon lets such phones on their network or I’m no longer bound to it.

I’m a little embarrassed how little I did with such a powerful phone. The USB pins were bent and so it wasn’t until I got a computer with functional Bluetooth before I could do anything. Even then, I couldn’t do any of the neatest stuff. I sort of resolved to use my next phone a little harder.

The problem is that I’m stingy. For around $110/mo that phone is pretty cool right out of the box. For $39/mo the phone is a cripple. It took a little poking around, but now I’m happy with it. Here’s what I did.

First and foremost, I got BitPim. This gives me access to the filesystem of the phone. I can import my address book, upload and download music, pictures and video. It even has a handy program for converting and croping music files to make ringtones¹. All this is done over Bluetooth or USB and without getting raped by Verizon.

¹ Friends: Let me know what you want for your ringtone. I’m putting Megaman 2 themes on there for people who don’t tell me what they want (or who want something unacceptable).

Annoyingly, iSync doesn’t support LG phones so updating contacts via BitPim is a bit of a process. I haven’t yet figured out how to do it without losing my speed dials. It’s there, I’m sure, I just haven’t played enough yet.

Next I avoided a conspicuous reaming on GPS — Ten dollars per month just to use the GPS that’s built into the hardware!? I found on HowardForums how to get access to the phone’s GPS. So now I can read the coordinates right off (at least in Littleton, NH where 922 isn’t re-routed to 911).

The last part of the project is to find functional way of accessing the internet (and email/IM) without the $2/MB hurting too badly. I’m going to play with wap.google.com tomorrow. I’d like to figure out what rape-free options I have. I’ll let you know. If anybody feels like they are in a good place with their wireless circuit switching service, let me know.